UFOs Are Real – FAA Division Chief John Callahan 2010

For 6 years Mr. Callahan was the Division Chief of the Accidents and Investigations Branch of the FAA in Washington DC. In his testimony he tells about a 1986 Japanese Airlines 747 flight that was followed by a UFO for 31 minutes over the Alaskan skies. The UFO also trailed a United Airlines flight until the flight landed. There was visual confirmation as well as air-based and ground-based radar confirmation. This event was significant enough for the then FAA Administrator, Admiral Engen, to hold a briefing the next day where the FBI, CIA, President Reagan’s Scientific Study Team, as well as others attended. Videotape radar evidence, air traffic voice communications and paper reports were compiled and presented. At the conclusion of this meeting, the attending CIA members instructed everyone present that ‘”he meeting never took place” and that “this incident was never recorded.” Not realizing that there was additional evidence, they confiscated just the evidence presented, but Mr. Callahan was able to secure videotape and audio evidence of the event.

Callahan states, “Now in the 747 they have radar in the nose that picks up the weather outside there. So his radar is picking up a target. He sees this target with his eyes. And the target, the way he described it, was a huge ball with lights running around it. And I think he said it was like four times as big as a 747!”

And the military man said something like, yeah, I see him 35 miles north of Anchorage…

The UFO was bouncing around the 747 here. And when he would say that, the military guy would cut in and say, he’s now at 2:00 or 3:00 and he would confirm the position. The military controller has, what they call, height-finding radar, and they have long-range radar and short-range radar. So if they don’t catch it on one of their systems they catch it on the other. And if you listen to the military man, at one time he said, I have it on the height radar, or my range radar, which indicated that they had a target on his system. Well they ran through for the best part of 31 minutes…

Then the next day I got a call from someone with the Scientific Study Group [for President Reagan], or the CIA, I’m not sure who it was, the first call. And they had some questions about the incident. And I had said, I don’t know what you are talking about, you probably want to call the Admiral [FAA Administrator Engen].

Well a few minutes later the Admiral calls down and says, I have set up a briefing tomorrow morning at 9:00 am in the round room. Bring all the stuff you have. Bring everybody up there and give them whatever they want. We want to get out of it. Just let them do whatever they want. So I brought all the people from the Tech Center. We had all kinds of boxes of data that we had them print out; it filled up the room. They brought in three people from the FBI, three people from the CIA, and three people from Reagan’s Scientific Study team — I don’t know who the rest of the people were but they were all excited…

One of the guys from the CIA, when we got done says, “This meeting never took place. We never had this meeting. And this was never recorded.”

At the time I said, “I don’t know why you are saying this. I mean, there was something there and if it’s not the stealth bomber, then you know, it’s a UFO. And if it’s a UFO, why wouldn’t you want the people to know? Oh, they got all excited over that.”

You don’t even want to say those words. He said this is the first time they ever had 30 minutes of radar data on a UFO. And they are all itching to get their hands onto the data and to find out what it is and what really goes on. He says, “If they come out and told the American public that they ran into a UFO out there, it would cause panic across the country. So therefore, you can’t talk about it. And we are going to take all this data…”

Well when they read the reports that came through the FAA decided it had to protect themselves — you can’t say you saw a target, even though this is what he said. So they made him change his report to say “position symbols,” which makes it sound like it wasn’t really a target. Well if it’s not a target then a lot of the other position symbols that we are separating [on radar] aren’t targets either. And when I read that, I thought oh, there is something fishy here, that somebody is worried about something or other and they are trying to cover up.

The only ones that see a UFO in the TV programs are the rednecks out in the country that are going coon hunting or alligator hunting at night. You don’t find anybody with any kind of smarts or some professional individual saying hey, last night let me tell you what I saw. They don’t display that in the United States. So if you talk about seeing a UFO, you are putting yourself in a funny kind of category. That’s probably one of the reasons why you don’t hear about it anymore. But as far as I’m concerned, I saw a UFO chase a Japanese 747 across the sky for over half an hour on radar. And it’s faster than anything that I know of in our Government.

Well, I’ve been involved in a lot of cover-ups with the FAA. When we gave the presentation to the Reagan staff I was behind the group that was there. And when they were speaking to the people in the room, they had all those people swear that this never happened. But they never had me swear it never happened. And it always bothered me that we have these things going on and when you see something or you hear something on the radio or TV, the news, that it’s put down as it’s not there. I have a hard time saying nothing.

It still bothers me that I’ve seen all this, I know all this, and I’m walking around with the answer, and nobody wants to ask the question to get the answer. And it kind of irritates me a little bit. And I don’t believe our Government should be set up that way. I think when we have something like this, that you can probably find out more about what’s going on in the world [by not covering it up].

If they [the UFOs] can travel that far, that distance with that type of machinery, who knows what they could do here for the health of the nation, the people, the food they could give them, the cancers we could cure. They have to know more than us to be able to travel at that speed.

For those people that say that if these UFOs existed, they would some day be on radar and that there’d be professionals who would see it, then I can tell them that back in 1986 there were enough professional people that saw it. It was brought down to headquarters, FAA headquarters, Washington D.C. The Administrator saw the tape of it. The people that we were debriefing, they’ve all seen. Reagan’s Scientific Study team, three of those professors, doctors, they’ve seen it. As far as I was concerned they were the ones that verified my own thoughts about it. They were very, very excited about the data. They had said that this was the only time a UFO was ever recorded on radar for any length of time where it is 30 some minutes. And they have all this data to look at…

What I can tell you is what I’ve seen with my own eyes. I’ve got a videotape. I’ve got the voice tape. I’ve got the reports that were filed that will confirm what I’ve been telling you. And I’m one of those, what you would call the high Government officials in the FAA. I was a Division Chief. I was only three or four down from the Admiral…

Callahan in early January of 1987, I received a call from the Air Traffic Quality Control Branch in FAA’s Alaskan regional office, requesting guidance on what to tell the media personnel who were overflowing their office. The media was requesting information about the UFO that chased a Japanese 747 across the Alaskan sky for some 3 minutes at flight levels between 30, 000 and 35,000 feet on November 7, 1986. Somehow, the word had got out.

What UFO; when did this take place; why wasn’t Washington Headquarters informed?” I asked. “Hey, he replied, “Who believes in UFO’s? I just need to know what to tell the media to get them out of here.” The answer to that question was easy: “Tell them it’s under investigation. Then, collect all the data – the voice tapes and data disc for both the facility and the military. Send then overnight to the FAA Tech Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey.”

Japan Air Lines flight 628, a cargo jet with a pilot, co-pilot and one crew member, was just north of Anchorage, and it was about 8 pm when the pilot first reported the UFO. He described it as a huge ball with lights running around it. He said it was about four times bigger than a 747, and he saw it with his own eyes. So did the other two crew members. Over the course of three minutes, the UFO jumped miles in a few seconds, changing places to different spots around the 747, in one sweep of the radar scope.

JC: …Now in the 747 they have radar in the nose that picks up the weather outside there. So his radar is picking up a target. He sees this target with his eyes. And the target, the way he described it, was a huge ball with lights running around it. And I think he said it was like four times as big as a 747!

And the military man said something like, yeah, I see him 35 miles north of Anchorage…

The UFO was bouncing around the 747 here. And when he would say that, the military guy would cut in and say, he’s now at 2:00 or 3:00 and he would confirm the position. The military controller has, what they call, height-finding radar, and they have long-range radar and short-range radar. So if they don’t catch it on one of their systems they catch it on the other. And if you listen to the military man, at one time he said, I have it on the height radar, or my range radar, which indicated that they had a target on his system. Well they ran through for the best part of 31 minutes…

Then the next day I got a call from someone with the Scientific Study Group [for President Reagan], or the CIA, I’m not sure who it was, the first call. And they had some questions about the incident. And I had said, I don’t know what you are talking about, you probably want to call the Admiral [FAA Administrator Engen].

Well a few minutes later the Admiral calls down and says, I have set up a briefing tomorrow morning at 9:00 am in the round room. Bring all the stuff you have. Bring everybody up there and give them whatever they want. We want to get out of it. Just let them do whatever they want. So I brought all the people from the Tech Center. We had all kinds of boxes of data that we had them print out; it filled up the room. They brought in three people from the FBI, three people from the CIA, and three people from Reagan’s Scientific Study team — I don’t know who the rest of the people were but they were all excited…

When they got done, they actually swore all these other guys in there that this never took place. We never had this meeting. And this was never recorded.

SG: Who said that? Who was saying that?

JC: This was one of the guys from the CIA. Okay? That they were never there and this never happened. At the time I said, well I don’t know why you are saying this. I mean, there was something there and if it’s not the stealth bomber, then you know, it’s a UFO. And if it’s a UFO, why wouldn’t you want the people to know? Oh, they got all excited over that. You don’t even want to say those words. He said this is the first time they ever had 30 minutes of radar data on a UFO. And they are all itching to get their hands onto the data and to find out what it is and what really goes on. He says if they come out and told the American public that they ran into a UFO out there, it would cause panic across the country. So therefore, you can’t talk about it. And they are going to take all this data…

Well when they read the reports that came through the FAA decided it had to protect themselves — you can’t say you saw a target, even though this is what he said. So they made him change his report to say “position symbols,” which makes it sound like it wasn’t really a target. Well if it’s not a target then a lot of the other position symbols that we are separating [on radar] aren’t targets either. And when I read that, I thought oh, there is something fishy here, that somebody is worried about something or other and they are trying to cover up.

When the CIA told us that this never happened and we never had this meeting, I believe it was because they didn’t want the public to know that this was going on. Normally we would put out some type of a news release that such and such happened…

The only ones that see a UFO in the TV programs are the rednecks out in the country that are going coon hunting or alligator hunting at night. You don’t find anybody with any kind of smarts or some professional individual saying hey, last night let me tell you what I saw. They don’t display that in the United States. So if you talk about seeing a UFO, you are putting yourself in a funny kind of category. That’s probably one of the reasons why you don’t hear about it anymore. But as far as I’m concerned, I saw a UFO chase a Japanese 747 across the sky for over half an hour on radar. And it’s faster than anything that I know of in our Government.

Well, I’ve been involved in a lot of cover-ups with the FAA. When we gave the presentation to the Reagan staff I was behind the group that was there. And when they were speaking to the people in the room, they had all those people swear that this never happened. But they never had me swear it never happened. And it always bothered me that we have these things going on and when you see something or you hear something on the radio or TV, the news, that it’s put down as it’s not there. I have a hard time saying nothing.

It still bothers me that I’ve seen all this, I know all this, and I’m walking around with the answer, and nobody wants to ask the question to get the answer. And it kind of irritates me a little bit. And I don’t believe our Government should be set up that way. I think when we have something like this, that you can probably find out more about what’s going on in the world [by not covering it up]. If they [the UFOs] can travel that far, that distance with that type of machinery, who knows what they could do here for the health of the nation, the people, the food they could give them, the cancers we could cure. They have to know more than us to be able to travel at that speed.

For those people that say that if these UFOs existed, they would some day be on radar and that there’d be professionals who would see it, then I can tell them that back in 1986 there were enough professional people that saw it. It was brought down to headquarters, FAA headquarters, Washington D.C. The Administrator saw the tape of it. The people that we were debriefing, they’ve all seen. Reagan’s Scientific Study team, three of those professors, doctors, they’ve seen it. As far as I was concerned they were the ones that verified my own thoughts about it. They were very, very excited about the data. They had said that this was the only time a UFO was ever recorded on radar for any length of time where it is 30 some minutes. And they have all this data to look at…

What I can tell you is what I’ve seen with my own eyes. I’ve got a videotape. I’ve got the voice tape. I’ve got the reports that were filed that will confirm what I’ve been telling you. And I’m one of those, what you would call the high Government officials in the FAA. I was a Division Chief. I was only three or four down from the Admiral…

Japan Air Lines flight 628, a cargo jet with a Captain Terauchi as pilot above, co-pilot and one crew member, was just north of Anchorage, and it was about 8 pm when the pilot first reported the UFO. He described it as a huge ball with lights running around it. He said it was about four times bigger than a747, and he saw it with his own eyes. So did the other two crew members. Over the course of three minutes, the UFO jumped miles in a few seconds, changing places to different spots around the 747, in one sweep of the radar scope. Here is Captain Terauchi’s drawing of the sighting.

After receiving the data from Alaska almost two months later, I briefed my boss Harvey Safer and the FAA Administrator Admiral Engen, and Safer and I went to the FAA Tech Center to observe the playback.

The FAA had developed a program capable of recreating the traffic on the controllers’ scope, or plan view display. I instructed the FAA specialist to synchronize the voice tapes with the radar data so we could hear everything the controller and pilot said. I videotaped the radar display. Later that day, I requested that the FAA automation specialists plot the radar targets along the route of flight and explain what each target was doing. I videotaped the resulting chart. The print out and radar play back displayed primary targets in the vicinity of the 747. These target returns were displayed about the same time and place as the pilot advised viewing the UFO. Both the radar and manual controller observed the primary target. The military controllers also viewed the primary target on their radar and identified it as a “double primary.” The pilot and crew viewed the target on their radar and were able to see the huge UFO at the same time as it approached their aircraft.

If this craft had been a Leer jet or military aircraft at the wrong altitude, that would have been clear. The FAA has procedures that cover tracking unidentified aircraft violating another’s airspace -but it has no procedures for UFOs. Back at FAA headquarters, I gave Administrator Engen a quick briefing and showed him the video. He set up a briefing with President Reagan’s scientific staff, and told me my function was to give them a dog and pony show and hand this event off to them, “since the FAA does not deal with UFO’s.” I brought along a copy of the video and all the data print outs available at the time. One of the scientists asked a number of questions, such as, what is the range of the radar, what is the frequency of the radar, what is the band width, what is the formula for the height equipment, etc. I was impressed with the response from the FAA experts.

After receiving the data from Alaska almost two months later, I briefed my boss Harvey Safer and the FAA Administrator Admiral Engen, and Safer and I went to the FAA Tech Center to observe the playback.

The FAA had developed a program capable of recreating the traffic on the controllers’ scope, or plan view display. I instructed the FAA specialist to synchronize the voice tapes with the radar data so we could hear everything the controller and pilot said. I videotaped the radar display. Later that day, I requested that the FAA automation specialists plot the radar targets along the route of flight and explain what each target was doing. I videotaped the resulting chart. The print out and radar play back displayed primary targets in the vicinity of the 747. These target returns were displayed about the same time and place as the pilot advised viewing the UFO. Both the radar and manual controller observed the primary target. The military controllers also viewed the primary target on their radar and identified it as a “double primary.” The pilot and crew viewed the target on their radar and were able to see the huge UFO at the same time as it approached their aircraft.

If this craft had been a Leer jet or military aircraft at the wrong altitude, that would have been clear. The FAA has procedures that cover tracking unidentified aircraft violating another’s airspace -but it has no procedures for UFOs. Back at FAA headquarters, I gave Administrator Engen a quick briefing and showed him the video. He set up a briefing with President Reagan’s scientific staff, and told me my function was to give them a dog and pony show and hand this event off to them, “since the FAA does not deal with UFO’s.” I brought along a copy of the video and all the data print outs available at the time. One of the scientists asked a number of questions, such as, what is the range of the radar, what is the frequency of the radar, what is the band width, what is the formula for the height equipment, etc. I was impressed with the response from the FAA experts.

At the end, one of the three people from the CIA said, “This event never happened; we were never here; we’re confiscating all this data and you are all sworn to secrecy.” “What do you think it was?” I asked the CIA person. “A UFO and now they have over 30 minutes of radar to go over,” he responded. “Well let’s get a twix out and advise the American public that we were visited by a UFO,” I suggested. “No way, if we were to tell the American public there are UFO’s they would panic,” he informed me. Sometime after the briefing, the detailed FAA report which included extensive interviews with the pilot and crew, the chart prepared at the Tech Center; and facility voice tapes arrived at my office and were placed on a small table waiting for the CIA to request more data. The material stayed there until I retired two years later, and I’ve had it ever since. Most people including FAA controllers really aren’t familiar with how the FAA radar system works and why all aircraft traveling through our airspace are not caught on radar or displayed on the controllers PVD. But I am. The system and organization of the FAA is not configured to identify and track these types of performances. Thanks to Steven Greer, Leslie Kean and John Callahan

For 6 years Mr. Callahan was the Division Chief of the Accidents and Investigations Branch of the FAA in Washington DC. In his testimony he tells about a 1986 Japanese Airlines 747 flight that was followed by a UFO for 31 minutes over the Alaskan skies. The UFO also trailed a United Airlines flight until the flight landed. There was visual confirmation as well as air-based and ground-based radar confirmation. This event was significant enough for the then FAA Administrator, Admiral Engen, to hold a briefing the next day where the FBI, CIA, President Reagan’s Scientific Study Team, as well&hellip;

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